Category: Speeches

Lord Blencathra – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Blencathra on 2016-06-06.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to implement the suggested changes to the Tata pensioners pension fund to all public sector pensions.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

In response to proposals put forward by the British Steel Pension Scheme and supported by Tata Steel UK, the Government is consulting on options to enable a potential restructuring of the British Steel Pension Scheme to deliver a scheme that is sustainable and provides clarity and security to scheme members. The consultation closes on 23 June 2016.

In the last Parliament the Government took action to secure the long term sustainability of public service pensions, by changing the indexation of pensions in payment to the Consumer Prices Index, increasing member contributions by 3.2 percentage points on average, and introducing new career average pensions schemes with higher normal pension ages and a cost control mechanism.

01/01/2023
Lord West of Spithead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord West of Spithead on 2016-07-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the response by Lord Ashton of Hyde on 19 July (HL Deb, col 525), what assessment the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence, National Security Council, Joint Intelligence Committee and National Crime Agency have made of the suitability of the planned changes to the provision of reporting by the BBC Monitoring Service.

Earl of Courtown

Government has been working closely with the BBC to ensure the requirements of the MOD, FCO, Cabinet Office, and the intelligence agencies can continue to be met by BBC Monitoring.

01/01/2023
Jamie Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2016-10-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 September 2016 to Question 44901, if he will make the advertising costs of attendance allowance readily available either (a) during or (b) after the consultation on the devolution of attendance allowance.

Penny Mordaunt

The consultation “Self-sufficient local government: 100% business rates retention” published by the Department for Communities and Local Government sought views on a range of options for devolving new responsibilities to local government including more responsibility for caring for older people.

The feedback from that consultation which closed on 26 September is currently being analysed and a response will be published in due course.

The Government would undertake a further consultation, accompanied by a relevant impact assessment, if any changes were to be proposed in relation to Attendance Allowance.

The information on administrative costs related to Attendance Allowance is collected by DWP but is not currently available for the financial year 2015-16.

The information requested on applications is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Information on claims awarded under the special rules for people with terminal illness is available from the DWP Tabulation Tool: http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/100pc/tabtool.html.

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01/01/2023
Chris Evans – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Evans on 2015-10-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department provides to dog legislation officers on enforcing section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

George Eustice

No estimate has been made of the number of dogs humanely destroyed under section 1 of the 1991 Act. There are 3,222 dogs on the list of exempted section 1 dogs in Great Britain. These are dogs assessed by the courts not to be a danger to public safety including, since 13 May 2014 in relation to England and Wales, assessed as being in the charge of a fit and proper person. Guidance for enforcers of the law on dangerous dogs was issued in March 2009 and is available on line via the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69263/dogs-guide-enforcers.pdf

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01/01/2023
Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department plans to spend on new precision weapons systems in each year from 2015 to 2020.

Mr Philip Dunne

Over the next five years, the Department plans to spend around £6.5 billion on the procurement, support and testing of sophisticated weapons systems.

01/01/2023
Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-01-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, when he plans to commence the provisions on the imposition of financial penalties on respondent employers who fail to pay an employment tribunal award in section 150 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015.

Nick Boles

We expect to commence the financial penalty provision in section 150 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 from April 2016.

01/01/2023
Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2016-01-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information he holds on the average length of time allocated for face-to-face appointments for personal independence payment claimants attending the Queen’s Road assessment centre in Brighton; and if he will make a statement.

Justin Tomlinson

DWP does not set a time limit for face-to-face assessments. Consultations take as long as necessary in order to reach the evidence-based conclusions on individual cases. Atos Healthcare assumes for scheduling purposes an average length of 1.5 hours for the Health Professional to see the claimant and to write up the report.

01/01/2023
Stephen Metcalfe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Metcalfe on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what (a) human resources, (b) communications, (c) grant administration, (d) building and estates management and (e) other administrative functions are shared by the seven research councils; and which such services are delivered independently by each research council.

Joseph Johnson

The seven Research Councils currently operate their own corporate functions, with separate Human Resources, Finance, Communications and IT operations.

The Research Councils are working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on a new digital grants system and common technology platform.

The Research Councils share a number of services including a main campus in Swindon at Polaris House; access to the London base of the Medical Research Council (MRC); and Internal Audit and Assurance functions, which are hosted by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). BBSRC also operate the estates and facilities management of Polaris House.

All seven Councils have their transactional HR, finance, payroll, systems and grants administration provided by UK Shared Business Services and six of the seven Councils share a pension scheme and its administration, with MRC running its own pension scheme.

The Government is implementing Sir Paul Nurse’s report, which recommended an evolution of the Research Councils into a formal organisation with a single Accounting Officer. Sir Paul advised that a new Research UK body could support the whole system to collectively become more than the sum of its parts, including by simplifying transactional operations, reducing the burden of administration currently placed on each individual Research Council, and enabling a stronger focus on multi-disciplinary research. We also want to strengthen collaboration between the research base and the commercialisation of discoveries in the business community and this is why we are looking to integrate Innovate UK into Research UK. Innovate UK will retain its clear business focus and separate funding stream.

01/01/2023

Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Barker on 2016-03-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their expected bilateral spending on technical assistance to programmes funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in addition to their commitment to the Global Fund in (1) 2015–16, and (2) 2016–17.

Baroness Verma

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a critically important part of the international architecture for fighting the three diseases. The UK provides technical assistance to programmes funded by the Global Fund through the following organisations: the Stop-TB Partnership, Roll Back Malaria, UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation’s Global Malaria Programme. The table (below) shows DFID’s spend to these organisations over the last five financial years.

(£ Millions)

	2010/11	2011/12	2012/13	2013/14	2014/15
WHOs Global Malaria Programme	–	1.50	3.50	1.50	3.50
Roll Back Malaria	0.52	1.00	1.63	0.63	1.23
Stop TB Partnership	1.00	1.90	1.50	0.50	1.00
UNAIDS	10.00	10.00	15.00	15.00	15.00

Total (£ Millions)	11.52	14.40	21.63	17.63	20.73

The UK is committed to remaining a world leader in tackling global diseases and ending the epidemics of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 2030. Our future contributions to the Global Fund will be determined following the completion of the Bilateral and Multilateral Aid Reviews.

01/01/2023

Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-04-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Written Statement to the House of 16 July 2015, HCWS113, on Publication of Learning not Blaming and Review of NHS Leadership, what assessment he has made of the consistency of the abolition of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s statutory Midwifery Committee with his plan to end the statutory supervision of midwives.

Ben Gummer

In the ‘Learning not blaming: The government response to Freedom to Speak Up, the Public Administration Select Committee report on clinical incidents, and the Morecambe Bay Investigation’, the Government accepted the recommendation to remove the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) current responsibility and accountability for statutory supervision of midwives in the United Kingdom and committed to changing the law as speedily as possible.

The abolition of the statutory Midwifery Committee at the NMC is a consequence of the Law Commission review of professional regulators. The Midwifery Committee does not have a role in the statutory supervision of midwives. The NMC is considering how midwifery advice will be secured by the NMC if the Midwifery Committee is, after consultation, abolished. It has set up a Midwifery Panel of interested parties to do this.

The proposals for a new design of supervision for midwifery, incorporated setting up a task force in each country of the UK under the auspices of each UK Chief Nursing Officer. They are currently working through plans to create new mechanisms and considering what systems and processes will replace the Local Supervising Authorities.

01/01/2023